Wednesday, January 2, 2013

Not Enough Good Guys to Go Around

We'll need to fight military-style fire with military fire. It won't
be enough to stick one or even three uniformed police officers at the
front doors of our schools with their conventional, .40 caliber pistols
and call that sufficient protection. Just ask yourself: In a duel
between you and this anonymous "bad guy," only one of you can have the
100-round assault rifle, the other gets the 13-round handgun; which
weapon would you choose?

We need James Holmes,
SWAT Team-style gear, complete with helmets, neck protectors,
bullet-proof vests, helmets, shields and a little tear gas for good
measure. We need throat and groin protectors, ballistic leggings and gas
masks. We have to eliminate any weak spots -- any at all that can be
exploited in an indiscriminate spray of bullets, and essentially be
prepared to turn an elementary school lobby into a war zone rivaling
Baghdad faster than you can say "Bushmaster."

My heart breaks for the possible realization of LaPierre's proposals,
that the schoolhouse might not be safe as a direct result of its
"Firearm-Free Zone" status, and that our only solution to keep our
children safe is to strengthen the gun presence in our society, as I'm
sure LaPierre would agree, it's not just our schools that are targets
for such destruction.

As we saw in Aurora, Colo.,
there's danger in our movie theaters, the threat of violence looming by
the roads we drive along every day, should an assailant decide to use the cars passing by for target practice. Our parking lots are unsafe, our shopping malls, college campuses, temples, churches, grocery stores, pet shops, soup kitchens.

As LaPierre has made us hauntingly aware, anywhere that there is not a
gun presence, we are vulnerable, and yet the NRA, which has a real
voice in this debate, can only point blame elsewhere -- anywhere but
itself.

It refuses to acknowledge the hard truth of the matter, which is that
there are simply too many bad guys out there with much too easy access
to these high-caliber assault rifles.

17 comments:

First off, James Holmes didn't have body armor or all this insane military gear. He had a Load-Bearing Vest, an entirely different piece of gear that media outlets confused for "body-armor". I know the portrayal is that somehow he would have been invulnerable to pistol fire and that the police will have to militarize to catch up (like police haven't already been militarizing?), but again, any .40 caliber pistol would do.

Secondly, "high-caliber assault rifles"? I see the author did not do their homework about caliber either, then again, we all expect rhetoric rather than facts at this point.

Third, anyone actually look at the statistics about how often these murders happen? I know the Brady Campaign likes to tout its "20 Mass Shootings per Year", but some of those incidents don't even involve anyone getting shot; the incident rate is boosted to make a good headline. Guess what percentage of US murders were committed with "assault weapons"? 2%. Most of those were with "assault pistols" or other miscellaneous weapons thrown into the bill. The actual number of murders using military-caliber rifles (doesn't even cover "assault-style rifles", just any rifle using a military caliber)? 0.8%, or roughly 80-100 per year. You know what you're at least 7 times more likely to be killed by? Someone's hands or feet. I can only say that this article is more hype than fact; a total exaggeration of the supposed public health risk here. When the bill is introduce to ban people's hands, maybe we'll talk.

I haven't seen the data regarding the specific statement that you challenged, but his comment in general agrees with the evidence that I've seen from other sources, so I'm more willing to trust it than anything from the deceitful Brady Bunch.

Here's their "mass shooting list". It's a gargantuan read, but most of them do not even meet FBI criteria for mass murder (4 or more killed at once). Brady Campaign definition appears to be "4 or more shot at".

It's interesting how the Brady Bunch counts gang violence across the whole city of Chicago as one mass shooting. I know the place is a war zone, but that's the fault of their kind. You'd think they'd keep quiet about it.

The ignorance displayed in that article actually comes as no surprise, given that a reporter wrote it. Generally, I respect journalists, but they have a blind spot regarding anything related to firearms. We can go through the errors and misconceptions if you like.

Whether it's a liberal conspiracy, or just ignorance, there are too many errors in media reports about guns, and in common conceptions held by politicians and the general public (both the gun owning public and the non-gun owning). A few examples are:

Reports that refer to AR's and AK's as firing High Power bullets that are Unsuitable for hunting because they would destroy the game animal. As is noted in one of your more recent posts, many of us think the .223 is too weak to use reliably against whitetail deer. Both the .224 and the AK's 7.62x39 are intermediate power cartridges. Many hunters use 30-06's which have far more power and a much longer effective range.

Reports on Teflon coated, cop killer bullets that imply that the teflon aids in penetration of body armor. Teflon and nylon are put on bullets to keep them from wearing out gun barrels. These polymers actually tend to stick to kevlar and would thus slow a bullet's passage through it. Moreover, the KTW bullets that were the originators of this misconception were actually designed by police officers for police use because they didn't like ricochets that were happening when they got into a shootout with someone in a car. The idea, which testing proved, was that the teflon would grip the metal or auto glass and help the bullet continue straight through it instead of allowing the bullet to skid and either ricochet or go through at an angle that missed the other shooter and flew off God knows where.

Reports that repeat the VPC or Brady line that pistol grips make it easier to fire from the hip. Not only is this not an accurate way to shoot, it is a patently false statement. Hold your wrist at you hip like you are holding a pistol--now hold it like you are holding a traditional rifle or shotgun stock at the same level. The latter is manifestly more comfortable and does not expose the wrist to unnecessary torque when firing.

Each of those things I listed has been cited by reporters and politicians to advocate for bans on certain types of weapons and ammunition. The teflon coating was used to shame more than one manufacturer into pulling their product off the market due to a constant drumbeat of exposes citing their product as "cop killer" ammo.

And, each of those items continues to be used for these same purposes. Is it ignorance on the part of those repeating the lines? Yes, often it is. But it does bias people against products and features that are not as dangerous as they are constantly being told.

Regarding the passive construction about the gun "going off," that wasn't an issue in the above conversation and is a deflection. However, I will agree with you that this is a bad construction. If you look at how these stories are treated on gun blogs, you will find lots of statements that guns don't just go off, and that these accidents wouldn't happen if people weren't fiddling with the loaded gun.

Except in a miniscule number of cases of defective guns, guns don't fire without a human doing something stupid. The media should certainly switch to a more appropriate terminology--e.g. someone (if the identity isn't clear yet) negligently or accidentally (as appropriate) discharged the weapon.

They should also work to alleviate their ignorance and learn about what they are writing about when it comes to guns rather than repeating distortions and outright lies.